For the record, none of this is new information. We’ve known major US media outlets publish Chinese propaganda for years. Their hypocrisy on the subject of election influence by foreign powers is absolutely hysterical though.
Explanatory media website Vox has been receiving money from a Chinese communist government-backed front organization.
A recent Vox blog post by foreign editor Yochi Dreazen titled, “The big winner of the Trump-Kim summit? China” discloses at the bottom of the piece that the reporting was subsidized by the China-United States Exchange Foundation.
“This reporting was supported by the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), a privately funded nonprofit organization based in Hong Kong that is dedicated to ‘facilitating open and constructive exchange among policy-makers, business leaders, academics, think-tanks, cultural figures, and educators from the United States and China,’” the post states in a note at the bottom.
CUSEF, as first noted by Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin, is a front organization backed by the Chinese government and established to spread the party’s propaganda.
A publication that screeches about Trump/Russia collusion and Russian meddling in our elections via Facebook ads should probably steer clear of doing what they decry. Vox, however, like the Washington Post, doesn’t seem to care if they do it.
Vox’s ties to CUSEF are receiving increased scrutiny in light of efforts to lawmakers to counter China’s promotion of propaganda in the U.S. media.
The Chinese government doesn’t just pay to have their propaganda published in American media, but they fund a LOT of that Washington DC think tank data the American media publishes to sway American public opinion.
Chinese Communist Party Funds Washington Think Tanks
The influence operations are conducted by the United Front Work Department, a Central Committee organ that employs tens of thousands of operatives who seek to use both overt and covert operations to promote Communist Party policies.
The Party’s United Front strategy includes paying several Washington think tanks with the goal influencing their actions and adopting positions that support Beijing’s policies.
“The [Chinese Communist Party] has sought to influence academic discourse on China and in certain instances has infringed upon—and potentially criminally violated—rights to freedoms of speech and association that are guaranteed to Americans and those protected by U.S. laws,” the report says.
All bought and paid for by the Chinese government.
Official Chinese Propaganda: Now Online from the WaPo!
As I never tire of saying, China Daily is my favorite newspaper in the world.
But it’s conceivable that not every visitor to the Washington Post’s web site would know the reason for my fondness and loyalty. China Daily is the state-controlled English-language voice of the Chinese government to the outside world. Sometimes this makes it a useful source of intel about the line the government wants to push.
WASHINGTON POST CRITICAL OF CHINESE INFLUENCE CAMPAIGN WHILE SPREADING CHINESE PROPAGANDA
The Washington Post has written two pieces in the past week drawing attention to the dangers of China’s foreign influence campaign, yet the newspaper appears to be complicit in advancing Chinese interests.
“The foreign influence campaign is part and parcel of China’s larger campaign for global power,” a Post opinion writer wrote Sunday, “Beijing’s strategy is first to cut off critical discussion of China’s government, then to co-opt American influencers in order to promote China’s narrative.”
“By influencing the influencers, China gets Americans to carry its message to other Americans,” the editorial explained, citing Glenn Tiffert, a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution.
The Washington Post, an unquestionably influential publication, regularly features Chinese propaganda. The Post’s China Watch insert is written and paid for by the state-run China Daily. While the prominent newspaper acknowledges that China Watch is an “advertising supplement” prepared by the Communist Party’s English-language mouthpiece and the People’s Republic of China in its print edition, the China Watch website lacks any clear indication that the information is of Chinese origin.
Democracy Dies in Communism: Washington Post runs Chinese propaganda
Under the proud motto “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” the Washington Post’s editors have run a Communist authoritarian defending his party’s attack on democracy and subjugation of the state to the Communist Party.
On Monday, the Post published Chinese venture capitalist, Eric X. Li’s endorsement of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent eradication of term limits for his office.
And by goodness is it an endorsement.
Chinese propaganda in The Post
It’s distressing to see The Post become a channel for state propaganda from the People’s Republic of China. Yet that’s what’s happening with the lengthy advertorials from the China Daily that are distributed with your newspaper.
The Sept. 30 “Chinawatch” insert was especially objectionable. Four of the six pages were filled with happy, seemingly fact-filled reports about the latest developments with Taiwan, all masquerading as “news.” But they were missing crucial context for understanding the fraught relations across the Taiwan Strait. There was no mention of controversies within democratic Taiwan about the new policies and their effects, nor any observations contrary to China’s deceptive strategies. All was harmony and light.
The Chinese government is spending generously worldwide to promote its view. But your accepting its advertising dollars is no mere commercial transaction. These “news reports” are from a state-controlled arm of the Chinese propaganda establishment.
Trump is right that China uses its media to influence foreign opinion, but so does Washington
Hong Kong (CNN)US President Donald Trump went off topic in characteristic style at the United Nations Security Council this week, accusing China of using state media to meddle in the upcoming midterm elections.
While he provided no evidence for his remarks, which derailed a meeting that was supposed to focus on issues of nonproliferation, he later accused China on Twitter of “placing propaganda ads in the Des Moines Register and other papers, made to look like news.”
Gotta love CNN’s ‘he provided no evidence’ comment considering everyone knows the Chinese government does this and it’s been widely reported for at least a decade.
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